Commentary on Mark 1:1-8

What John the Baptist does in Mark 1:4–8 is not unusual. Sure, most people in first-century Palestine were not adopting John’s fashion or eating his diet or spending their time out in the desert baptizing people. In that sense, John was certainly unusual. But John’s role, his public activity, was part of a centuries-long, recognizable Jewish tradition of prophetic proclamation.

The Jewish prophet was a voice of accountability, one who drew attention to Israel’s covenant with God, beckoning the people to wholehearted faithfulness to it. Such faithfulness was characterized by a sustained love for God and love for others, with the latter manifested through justice. The true prophet often called for repentance, whether their message was well liked or not; that message was rarely received well (especially among the comfortable and the powerful).

Prophets were also often quirky. In the Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah wears a loincloth, then hides it among the rocks near the Euphrates River without cleaning it (Jeremiah 13:1–5). Ezekiel eats a scroll given to him by God and reports that it “was as sweet as honey” (Ezekiel 3:3). Isaiah walks around naked and barefoot for three years (Isaiah 20:3). In each case, the prophet’s actions are symbolic.

At God’s command, Jeremiah hides the loincloth without washing it and later retrieves it. When he does, it is ruined. This symbolizes the ruined pride of Israel and Judah (Jeremiah 13:6–8). Ezekiel’s sweet-as-honey scroll symbolizes the message of God; however, although God’s word should be experienced as pleasant by the people, they will refuse to receive it (Ezekiel 3:4–11). Isaiah’s indecent exposure functions as a portent of the Egyptians and Cushites being led out of their land into exile, barefoot and naked (Isaiah 20:4).

John’s physical description aligns with this tradition. His dress is likely even an allusion to 2 Kings 1:8, in which Elijah is described as “a hairy man with a leather belt around his waist.” John’s diet, too, is surely symbolic, whether it represents asceticism, purity, or God’s care.¹ In a comparable way, the prophet Daniel’s diet is symbolic of purity (Daniel 3:8). Whatever the precise reason for John’s specific diet, it signals that his every action is steeped in symbolism, communicating the messages of God to the people through more than just words.

By the first century CE, prophetic figures were sometimes believed to be the Messiah, God’s Anointed One. The divinely appointed Messiah was expected to usher in God’s kingdom, through which God would rescue God’s people and mete out judgment while fixing the world, radically transforming it into all it was intended to be.

Not everyone was expecting a Messiah, and among those who were, there was not agreement about what that figure would be like or what they would do. But among those who were waiting for a Messiah, many people found prophetic figures to be attractive candidates: They were charismatic, pushing back against the status quo, challenging the comfortable, calling for repentance, and announcing God’s coming judgment.² Surely such figures were specially commissioned by God—could they be the one specially commissioned?

Mark’s Gospel does not directly suggest that people perceive John to be the Messiah, but it would not be surprising if they did (and indeed, other sources indicate as much). Regardless, for Mark, it is not John who is the Messiah. Instead, John’s prophetic function is to be the harbinger of the Messiah, to attest that God is on the move, bringing the kingdom here, and that God has a long-awaited agent who will be central to this activity. “Someone’s coming,” John tells the people. “I’m just the messenger.”

Mark is ambiguous about whether John knows that the “someone” coming, the Messiah, is Jesus of Nazareth, but Mark leaves no such ambiguity for the Gospel’s audience. The opening line of the Gospel, which itself serves a titular function, makes it clear what is to follow in this literary work: the good news (the literal translation of euangelion, or “gospel”) about Jesus Christ. “Christ” is an English rendering of the Greek christos, itself a translation of the Hebrew word mashiach, or “messiah” (1:1). By framing the Gospel with this introductory sentence—one that lacks a verb, hence its function as a title of sorts—Mark asserts that Jesus’s messiahship is good news.

Whether John knows he is talking about Jesus specifically or not, he makes a differentiation between his own baptism in water (a repentance ritual) and the baptism that the Coming One has to offer, a baptism in the Holy Spirit (1:8). John’s water baptism entails submersion in water to symbolize purification. The analogy in 1:8 suggests that the Coming One will offer submersion in the presence and action of God.

In this way, John’s baptism is preparatory, readying hearts for the divine activity on the horizon. The baptism in the Holy Spirit enacts such divine activity in and through the lives of those who are willing to follow. What unfolds in the Gospel of Mark, especially once Jesus begins his public ministry in 1:15, is the manifestation of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. God’s kingdom permeates the world and invites anyone who will to join in the activity.

Good news, indeed.

Notes

1. Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Augsburg Fortress, 2007), 145–146.
2. Some prophetic types circa the first century CE were political rebels. See David B. Levenson, “Messianic Movements,” in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Marc Zvi Brettler and Amy-Jill Levine, 2^nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2017), 622–628, here 624.